Salvador Abascal y Guadalupe Carranza Wedding in Exile

Jose Soto Molina

An unusual ecclesiastical celebration took place on the morning of March 17th, 1942. The children of La Paz witnessed the wedding of the beautiful teen Guadalupe Carranza and Salvador Abascal, the legendary leader of the National Synarchist Union. Guadalupe was later given the title “Princess of Tlalneplantla” by her son, Juan Bosco.

She was just 18 years old. He 33. Abascal had met her in Los Angeles, California when Lupita was only 16 years of age. He was impressed with her beauty, and upon his return to Mexico, sent her four postcards. It was enough to begin a courtship that lasted two years. The lengthy courtship was due partly to the leader’s difficult economic situation. He received support from the NSU and, in turn, used it to support his father’s house.

The prenuptial declarations appeared on March 19th, three months after the beginning of the Synarchist colonization of Maria Auxiliadora. The Carranza family arrived in La Paz two days before the wedding. Due to the lack of priests, who were in San Jose del Cabo and San Jose de Comondu, Father Gabriel Acosta agreed to receive the vows. Lupita Carranza was beautifully dressed as her parents drove her from the Perla Hotel to the altar.

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Salvador Abascal looked flawless in a suit given to him by his in-laws. The only witnesses in the church were the engineer Rafael Dévéze and his wife, and the children of La Paz. After the ceremony, Abascal rushed off to a meeting with the Governor General, Francisco J. Mujica. The Carranza family headed back to the hotel. “I wanted to go for a well-dressed walk on the boardwalk. I had never seen the sea and thought it would be delightful to stroll along on the arm of my husband,”Lupita Abascal recalled years later.

The next day, the Abascals visited the parish and went to Maria Auxiliadora at noon. The honeymoon was spent in the midst of desolation. However, their life in an arid landscape with vermin and occasional famine did not prevent Lupita from giving birth to their firstborn, Juan Bosco. By 1944, the conflict between her husband and the leaders of Synarchism was unsustainable.

That year, the head of the colony resigned. Lupita was pregnant when they left Maria Auxiliadora. Many years later, she would return as a widow with her son, Carlos Abascal Carranza. They looked longingly at the photographs exhibited in their honor. There was the young Tlalnepantla, in her palace of mats and palms.

Jose Soto Molina is a journalist, record keeper of the municipality of Comondú and writer. A selection of his narrative is included in the book Remained the word: Anthology of comundeños writers (ISC, 2014).